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David Sokol

Called it conscious capitalism or just good business, but these five companies have all prospered in every measure over the last decade by doing good for their employees, suppliers, customers or the general public.

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway said Wednesday that a former executive believed to have been in line to succeed Warren Buffett as CEO violated the company's insider trading and ethics policies by buying stock in a chemical company Berkshire is acquiring and failing to disclose key details.

David Sokol, once considered a likely successor to Warren Buffett as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, resigned this week from Berkshire under a cloud of possible insider trading charges. But these recent ethical lapses are hardly the worst of Sokol's business transgressions.

David Sokol, a top executive at Berkshire, left Warren Buffett's empire abruptly on Wednesday. Although the SEC claims not to be investigating the reasons, and he says the choice was personal, its hard not to see a connection to Berkshire's recent purchase of Lubrizol, which was a big windfall for Sokol.